INCURSION: Knightmare (Knight's Bane Trilogy Book 1)

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INCURSION: Knightmare (Knight's Bane Trilogy Book 1) Page 28

by Bryan Donihue


  "What are you doing? Why are you pointing that big gun at me? I didn't do anything," the woman claimed.

  Sensing something amiss, Doc stepped out of the truck, and her vestments began glowing a bright blue. As soon as she saw the priest, the arts director fell back and cowered as she hissed and spit at the priest. The team watched in fascination as the fangs extended from both the upper and lower jaws of the vampire. Her eyes turned totally black. She raised hands with long, sharp nails extruding from her fingers.

  Doc stepped forward and began to speak in Latin. Before the first sentence was out of her mouth, Boomer pulled the trigger on her AA-12. The shotgun barked once, and the camp staffer collapsed. The top of the vampire's head was missing.

  "No time for Latin. It's time to take out the predators," Boomer said as she looked at Doc.

  The teen by Boomer's side crouched in fear and clung to her legs, hiding her face in the folds of the tactical BDUs. Boomer reached her left hand down and hugged the girl tightly. She knelt down so that she was eye-to-eye with the frightened girl.

  "I'm going to put you somewhere safe until this is over," Boomer reassured the child. "I want you to sit in my big truck and wait for me to come get you."

  The explosives expert led her gently around to the back of the War Wagon and up the steps.

  "This is my friend, Spooky," Boomer said to the girl as she introduced her teammate. "He will make sure you're safe. Just don't touch any buttons or open any boxes. And don't look out the windows. It will be scary out there. Ok?"

  The frightened girl nodded.

  "Keep her safe. I'll be back for her," the explosives expert told Spooky.

  Boomer reached in and grabbed several magazines of the FRAG-12 grenades, including a couple that Norbert had marked as "Experimental - Use Against Vampires." She then climbed down the steps, and Spooky keyed the switch to close and seal the hatch.

  As she climbed out of the truck, Boomer saw that Heavy, who looked a little rattled, had re-joined the team. As she listened in on the conversation, she heard the big man exclaim, "And they were feeding the pieces to the rest of the camp, vamp and human! I found an honest-to-goodness arm—a child's arm—in the cooler."

  Six cut in. "Estimates? Boomer, how many girls?"

  "I saw forty-five or fifty girls. Unknown percentage not infected," the explosives expert said after quickly doing the math in her head.

  Six pointed to God. "And you? Boys?"

  The sniper paused and said, "About the same. Unknown number uninfected."

  "Ok. God, up on the roof of the War Wagon," the team commander continued. "You are long distance line of defense. Start taking them out as far away as possible. Boomer, Do-Right, and I will cover from the ground. Ghost, Heavy, and Doc have close-in support. Engage from distance with your long guns but use your blades when they get close. Doc, anything you can drum up will help now.

  "Call it eighty hostiles, with friendlies mixed in. Plus staff. My guess is the master is around here somewhere. Do not fire until you make sure of your target."

  Six keyed his mic and said, "Spooky. If we go down, call in air support and level this camp. You cannot let any of these vampires get away."

  Spooky placed the call directly to Agent Smith and provided him with Six's plan of action. Agent Smith asked his assistant where the closest air base was, and he was told that it was Ellsworth Air Force Base in South Dakota and that they flew the B1-B "Lancer" bombers. Agent Smith said he would call the base commander and request that he launch two of the bombers equipped with sufficient firepower. Smith explained to Spooky that the bombers were supersonic and capable of arriving within a short timeframe. They would be on station over the camp until the operation was over, one way or another.

  The radio on the arts director's belt began to squawk. It was the camp director calling for his staff to check in. One-by-one, the staff radioed in, except for the cook and the arts director. Deducing the meaning of the gunfire and the lack of a response from two of his staff, the camp director gave a final chilling message over the radio.

  "DHS agents who are listening to this radio: We are coming to get you," warned the camp director.

  God scrambled onto the roof of the War Wagon and dropped to his knees for more stability. The rest of the team fanned out around the front and sides of the truck. Boomer and Heavy each stood on a different side of the massive vehicle. Six stood right in front of the truck, about equidistance from his long-range support. Ghost slipped in between Boomer and Six, while Heavy stepped between Six and Do-Right. Doc stood behind Six at the front of the truck, waiting to hold off vampires.

  The doors to the main camp offices flung open and the camp director, the secretary, and the director's wife all came out the door in a rush. Boomer and Ghost immediately fired, sending shotgun slugs and rifle rounds through the body of the director's wife. As the creature fell under the fusillade of vampire rounds, the camp director howled in rage and launched himself at the two. Six turned slightly and placed the crosshairs over the man's head. After a quick squeeze of the trigger, a trio of rounds ripped into the vampire's chest. Screaming in agony, the camp director crashed to a halt and reeled from the blows. Regaining his senses, the director scrambled to his feet and flew at Six.

  Boomer switched targets to the camp secretary. The explosives expert methodically squeezed the trigger on her shotgun and put three rounds into the chest of the creature. As the vampire fell, Boomer paused to carefully put one more round into the head of each vamp on the ground in front of her.

  Ghost realized that Boomer could handle the last vamp and he turned to support his boss. The camp director had paused when being shot. As it again lunged for Six, the vampire found itself impaled on a silver blade that glowed white as it struck and then pierced through its chest. Surprise changed to pain, and the pain overwhelmed the motor functions of the monster. The creature watched in horror as the blade began to travel up its body and pierce its heart. Then its neck. The vamp did not understand its own mortality until the pain engulfed the creature, only to be relieved by darkness.

  Six nodded his thanks at the hunter.

  They both looked up in disbelief as the campers, led by their staff counselors, poured out of their cabins and savagely ran toward them. Many of the children ran across the grass much faster than should have been humanly possible. Every member of the DHS team opened fire.

  The swarm of vampires ran in waves across the open ground. Ranks of infected kids and staff quickly covering the distance between the creatures and the DHS team. Even as the smaller children fell, the larger creatures jumped or ran over them, eager to tear into the agents.

  Boomer felt the tears course down her face as she fired her shotgun. Her large vampire-hunting rounds ripped through the bodies as she shifted her aim and pulled the trigger. Concentrating on one vampire at a time, she would put two or three rounds into a creature, then shift her aim slightly to target another vamp beside the last. She numbly shot child after child as they charged toward the team. The bolt on her shotgun slammed open as the last round fired from her magazine, and she thumbed the magazine release button.

  Realizing that her attackers were fast approaching, and with no end in sight, she grabbed one of Norbert's special magazines of FRAG-12 ammunition and slammed it into the receiver. She toggled the switch to automatic and squeezed the trigger, emptying the magazine in under four seconds. In front of her, a line of explosions rippled across the front of the charging mob. Eight explosions ripped the vampire children and staffers into pieces. Boomer saw a fine, silvery haze envelope the area where the explosions occurred, and those creatures who were merely wounded began screaming and writhing in agony as the cloud of atomized silver nitrate descended and coated their open wounds. The explosives expert had to blink away tears as she saw the contorted faces and heard the screams of these children-turned-creatures.

  Six was busy on Boomer's left with his own wave of attacking creatures. Firing in short bursts, the team leader shifted
targets between shots. As each vampire fell to the ground, Six would shift slightly, place the sights on a new target, and pull the trigger. His mind refused to see anything past targets on the battlefield. He realized that he would have to account for his actions later, but, until then, he would bury his feelings. As he switched magazines, he felt and heard the concussion as Boomer opened up with her mini grenades and watched as the mist of silver bit into the surviving monsters.

  Slamming the bolt home to load a new round into the chamber, Six picked off more of the survivors of the initial rush. Concentrating on his wounded foes, who were slowly rising to their feet, he calmly and methodically chose his targets. If they recovered and stood, he would place a three-round burst into their head or chest. If the first burst did not kill the creature, a second one was usually enough to do so.

  In between the Six and Boomer, Ghost held on to his sword with one hand. In his other, he drew the Webley revolver from his holster. Taking careful aim, the hunter pointed the revolver at a wounded vampire. He squeezed the trigger, sending the .38 caliber silver and wood slug through its brain. His next target took two shots before it fell; the vampire after that required three shots to put it down, leaving Ghost with an empty revolver. The hunter thumbed the lever to release the cylinder, and the entire cylinder and barrel rotated forward.

  He dumped the spent shells on the ground and stuck the revolver under the crook of his sword arm. Ghost loaded six more shells into the revolver, grabbed his gun, and then flicked his wrist. The cylinder swung closed and latched. Ghost thumbed back the hammer again and set his sights on his next target. Two shots were required to put this creature down. Ghost moved on as he continued to shoot and reload, shoot and reload.

  Heavy stood next to Six and waited as the first monsters came out of the cabins. He noticed that there was already blood on several of them. Narrowing his eyes, he began to methodically work the trigger on his shotgun, sending silver and wood slugs at the creatures. As the bolt locked back on the empty shotgun, the heavy gunner dropped the drum onto the ground. Palming one of Norbert's specialty FRAG-12 magazines, Heavy slammed it into the receiver and made the weapon ready. After moving the selector to single fire, Heavy walked the rounds across the front line of infected campers as they ran toward the DHS team.

  The line of explosives tore up the monsters who were leading the attack. Those that weren't blown apart with a direct hit found themselves in agony as the clouds of silver nitrate filled the air. The grimace on Heavy's face exclaimed his pain in mowing down unarmed combatants, but he knew that he had no choice. He dropped the spent magazine from the AA-12, slammed another just like it into the receiver, and released the bolt forward. He lined up on a part of the attacking force that had not felt the effects of the shotgun and let fly.

  At Heavy's side, Do-Right was doing his best to ignore every instinct he had so that he could fire on these unarmed children and adult counselors. Even the fang-filled mouths, animal growls, and black eyes only slightly alleviated his troubled conscience. Pushing past his training, he raised his AR-15 and pulled the trigger. With every pull of his trigger, a monster staggered or fell. The former deputy had grown up hunting wild game, but his prey today was making the hunt a lot easier by running straight toward him.

  The deputy dropped the empty magazine out of his rifle and replaced it, then he let the bolt slide forward on a fresh round. Picking out more targets, he was startled when the ground erupted in explosions in front of the advancing horde. As he watched the silvery mist settle, he saw the heavy machine gunner to his left slam another magazine into his shotgun. When Heavy raised his shotgun again and started firing the fragmentation grenades, the deputy stopped targeting monsters in the same area. Instead, he began to finish off the monsters that had survived the initial explosions by doling out well-aimed shots to the head and torso.

  Kneeling on top of the War Wagon, God used his rifle with a precision that few could match. The sniper constantly looked in all directions, paying close attention to the areas where the team's field of fire left area uncovered. Any time a vampire popped into an area that the team could not fire on, God's 5.56mm silver and wood core round would put an immediate stop to the threat and the life of the creature.

  Living up to the "One shot, one kill" motto of snipers everywhere, the former HRT sniper was focused on the task at hand. The minor explosions from Boomer and Heavy only served to distract the vampires attacking the team, but they provided God with plenty of opportunity to capitalize on the distraction. He noticed quick movement to his right and swung in that direction. As he watched the camp archery instructor who Ghost had found flee the safety of the truck and run toward the staff offices, God could barely refrain from pulling the trigger.

  Standing behind the DHS team as the vampires came out of their cabins and offices had been a real shock to the system for William Buckhorn, the camp's archery instructor. The volume of firepower was impressive, and the disciplined control had been incredible to watch. Bill had wanted to help, but he didn't have any weapons that he could use. After coming to the realization that these were actual vampires and that there was something he could do that might help, the archery pro took advantage of a pause for reloading and broke for the staff offices. When he had almost reached the building, it dawned on him that this could be a very bad idea for him. He knew he would have to be very careful on his way back to the truck... he didn't want to get mistaken as one of the creatures.

  As he reached the staff building, he threw open the door and ran toward his office. He opened the door, glancing at the wall behind his small desk. Two bows hung on the wall. The first was a beautiful modern recurved bow. Even unstrung, the bow exuded power and quality. This bow was the one that almost took Bill to the Olympics five years prior, but he had never had a chance to compete. The other bow was a smaller, older, almost crude-looking longbow. Although this bow lacked the aesthetic appeal of the other, this bow was the reason he had made the dangerous dash back to his office.

  The bow was originally handmade, and any repairs had been made with the same craftsmanship. As a full-blooded Navajo, Bill's grandfather was a Navajo Shaman and had hand-crafted this bow specifically for his grandson, Bill, before he died. While not as beautiful as the Olympic bow, this one held special meaning, and, if his grandfather was to be believed, special power for his grandson.

  Bill reached up and lifted his grandfather's bow from the hangers. He quickly strung the bow as his grandfather had drilled into him He quietly spoke the ritual Navajo words he had been taught and felt better as the string neatly fell into place. Bill looked at the two quivers full of arrows that hung on the wall. One was of a modern material, with modern fiberglass target arrows neatly waiting to be slung and deployed. The second was a crude leather sling with a long single cross-body strap. The quiver contained authentic wooden arrows with feather fletchings and flint arrow heads. It was this quiver that Bill chose.

  Bill slung the quiver over his shoulder and drew one of the arrows from the quiver. Nocking the arrow in the string, he turned to leave his office and head back to the DHS truck but, instead, found the camp nurse, Lynn Powell, standing in the doorway and blocking his escape. Her coal black eyes and mouthful of fangs told him that she had been infected. And his lack of vampire changes told her that he was her prey.

  Before she could move toward him, he raised, drew, aimed, and fired in one smooth motion. One second the nurse was standing in the doorway looking hungrily at Bill; the next she was pinned to the wall behind her with an arrow jutting out from her forehead. The archery instructor looked down at the bow in his hands. He could barely make out a faint red glow as it faded quickly from the hieroglyphs carved into the shaft of the bow. Soon it was gone, and Bill didn't quite know if he had actually seen the glow.

  As he stepped through the doorway, he could see that the DHS team was winning but that the battle was beginning to take its toll. Even with the tremendous firepower at their disposal, the team could not stop all
of the vampires before they reached the truck. As Bill watched, the big mountain of a man they called "Heavy" drew two inward curved blades from the sheath on his back and began to attack those monsters that got too close for the others to shoot. Completely severing the arm of one vampire with a vicious backhand, the big man swung around as a follow-through and ran his khukuri through the neck of the creature and removed its head.

  On the other side of the truck, Bill watched the tall agent who had earlier found him in the woods drive his glowing blade into the chest of an adult vampire. The creature screamed and writhed. The man they called "Ghost" withdrew the blade and made a swipe with the blade, severing the vampire's head from the body. Continuing that same movement, the hunter then stepped into another vampire that had gotten too close, drawing the blade across the creature's abdomen and chest. Moments later this creature was dispatched again by the blade.

  As he stood next to Heavy, Six was startled as an infected staffer was able to slip past their defense. Six was unable to fire in time to stop the vampire from getting to him. Both Heavy and Ghost were engaged, and this one got inside the team leader's defenses. Six jammed his rifle sideways across the chest of the creature that was currently trying to eat his face. He could feel the hot, fetid breath of the vampire and see the gleaming of the razor-sharp teeth. As he struggled to get the creature away from him, the commander felt a the monster shudder as he watched an arrow with feather fletchings appear, sticking out of the temple of the monster's head.

  The commander looked to his right and saw the archery instructor nocking another arrow in the string of an old bow. The bow was engraved or marked with some sort of writing or symbols on it, and they appeared to be faintly glowing red. Six watched as Bill took aim again and let fly another arrow, piercing the head of another vampire that was about to attack Do-Right. Six watched as the instructor drew and nocked another arrow before the archer ran back across to the truck.

 

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